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Is it possible for a baby to sleep too much?

6 replies

TomHaverford · 19/10/2015 18:22

Hi, just looking for some advice about my 4mo dd. She has always been a reasonably good night time sleeper but terrible day time napper. I would have to feed her to sleep every night and nap, except in the day she would usually wake bright as a button every 20- 40 mins. She also didnt really seem tired although her mood did start to decline as time wore on. I knew she was overtired but couldnt really do anything to make her stay asleep.

Fast forward to this weekend, she is 17 weeks. We were away for the weekend and i was getting ready to put her to sleep at around 8. Normally she would go down at 9 or 10. She was very fussy and wouldnt feed to sleep although she was clearly tired. My husband put her down awake in the sleepyhead and turned the dream sheep on and she moaned on and off for 5 minutes (timed and not crying, just moaning) and fell asleep. Woke 40 minutes later and moaned for 2 minutes then fell back to sleep until 3.30 for a feed then straight through till 8.

Ever since then i have been following a nap schedule that i found and just putting her down in the crib with the dream sheep playing and he has been taking 4 1.5-2 hr naps. This is so much more than she was having and she still seems tired! Is this normal? It seems like a lot of sleep for a 4mo? Most schedules say put the baby down 1.5 hours after waking but she cant make it that long without yawning rubbing eyes etc, something she never did when she was only sleeping 20 min at a time. I just had to put her down at 6 as she couldnt stay awake.

Thanks for reading if you got this far!

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
ffffffedup · 19/10/2015 18:50

Each baby Is different but I think at this age it's probably better she has too much sleep rather than not enough,as long she's feeding well and often then go with it

September60b · 19/10/2015 18:58

My dd has always needed a fair amount of sleep in the daytime, but I found that she was particularly sleepy around the 4 month mark. I think it was probably a growth spurt plus learning to roll. I was always worried about her having too much sleep in the daytime but I found that the better she slept in the daytime the better she slept at night.

Sounds like she's doing great sleep wise, especially as she's settling herself already!

FATEdestiny · 19/10/2015 20:40

I think lots of people (vastly) underestimate the amount of sleep babies need.

BumWad · 20/10/2015 04:19

Sounds normal to me

TomHaverford · 20/10/2015 09:14

Thanks for all the advice. Turns out she slept a lot in the day but woke every hour last night!

OP posts:
slightlyconfused85 · 21/10/2015 11:00

Both mine have always needed a lot of day time sleep and awake times were short as far as 6 months for DD and DS is looking to be very similar. I think babies need more sleep than people realise as long as they're getting their feeds it's fine

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